Administration Guide

10. The Assignment Two topic

What is the Mind-Brain Identity Theory? State and assess the strongest argument in its favour (hint: "parsimony"). State and assess the strongest argument against it (hint: "species chauvinism").

Here are some guidelines. They are not general "does" and "don’t" as in Section 10. They are guidelines about the specific kinds of philosophical issues you should be thinking through in the course of planning your essay. If you can answer each of the following questions, then everything should be fine. If you can’t, then work on the ones whose answer hasn’t quite clicked into place yet. The word lengths are suggestions to refrain from going too deeply into certain areas, and are not meant to add up to the word length of the final essay.

What is the theory of mind-brain identity and how does it differ from the theory of mind-body duality? Here is a quick definition of the difference: mind-body dualism is a dualism of two sorts of structures (mental stuff and physical stuff), while mind-brain identity theory claims there is basically just one sort of structure in the universe (physical stuff). You might include something like this I suppose. But notice right away how totally uninformative saying that really is (imagine you are trying to make the thing clear to a one). So it can’t help but be heaps better to explain the difference in terms of the arguments which each uses to get itself started - e.g. dualism relies completely on arguments constructed around Leibniz’ Law; e.g. identity theory relies on arguments constructed around completely different notions (which ones?). Likewise, it can’t help but be heaps better to explain the difference by setting out some of the work which each theory does, in particular the work which each theory claims it does better than the other - e.g. dualism respects privileged access which "obviously" is not a feature that physical bodies have, e.g. identity theory respects those advances in neurology which "obviously" could come about only when it attached itself to the purely physical sciences such as chemistry and electricity. Now that I have started you off, you should be able to think of any number of better ways of explaining things here. They are right at your fingertips (really, they are). (300-500 words)
What is the identity theory’s "parsimony" objection to mind-body dualism, and why does it favour mind-brain identity as a more suitable theory for modern times? Assess how good an argument it is. (300-500 words)
What is the [functionalist’s] "species-chauvinism" objection to mind-brain identity theory? Assess how good an argument it is. (300-500 words)
For adventurous souls: Of course the mind-brain identity theory can not avail itself of the concepts of "function" as opposed to "structure" which are the special preserve of the theory of functionalism But can mind-brain identity theory make use of its own "token" / "type" distinction, also discussed in Sober’s lecture on functionalism? How well would this allow mind-brain identity theory to handle the problem of species chauvinism? (300-400 words)
Assess the overall success of the identity theory. Do you agree that it has proved what it set out to prove? Do you disagree? Do you partly agree and partly disagree? Again, don’t just state a preference; back up your assessment with reasons. (200-300 words)

Note: Again, write a fully integrated essay. Definitely do not write five short essays, one on each of these suggestions.

Recommended essay length: Aim for 1200 words.

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